


A Chain To Hold You Back

by mackenziebutterschnapps (hannibalsbattlebot)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Abusive Relationships, Angst, Backstory, Gen, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Minor Violence, Non-Sexual Bondage, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-04 04:45:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2952890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannibalsbattlebot/pseuds/mackenziebutterschnapps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Randall Tier is a hostile and sad young man, angry in a way his parents don’t understand. They can afford the best, so they get him the best psychiatrist they can find. Dr. Lecter approaches Randall’s therapy in a way that is different from any psychiatrist Randall has ever been to.<br/>Just when he is feeling most isolated from other humans, Randall is surprised when he starts to develop a friendship with Peter, an older man with an affinity for animals. Peter Bernadone loves all animals and Randall begins to hope that means he can be loved and accepted for who he is: an animal in the body of a man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Awesome art from coldpress at the end of Chapter 7

 

_"Do you have a shadow, Peter? Someone only you can see? Someone you considered a friend, who made you feel less alone, until you saw what he really is?"_

 

 

Randall’s parents finally had to admit the psychiatrist they had been bringing Randall to wasn't working out when they discovered he had been sneaking out at night to sleep in the woods.

It was true that under Dr. Bailey’s care, the fights at school had eased off, which his parents thought was positive, but it was only coincidence. Randall had the reputation around school of “fighting dirty” and the bullies stayed away from him, choosing easier prey. Randall wasn’t above biting, scratching and eye-gouging. He liked biting the best, always had, since kindergarten.  He knew to go for the tender inner arm, or the pinch of flesh above the hips. In these places, he could get his teeth in, lock his jaw and not stop until he drew blood, as cold and unblinking as a shark.

When his parents found his bedroom empty at two in the morning they panicked, because they had seen this before. They knew he was returning to old patterns. "Den-making," his father called it, outside of his mother's hearing. Whatever they called it, it was a sign Randall's nameless condition was getting worse. Again. Later that morning, after she had picked twigs from his hair and tucked him into a civilized human bed, his mother started calling around, looking for referrals and recommendations. His mother booked him an emergency appointment with a new psychiatrist.

His parents sniped at each other all the way to the new psychiatrist's office. His father resented the cost and the distance they had to drive. He said to his wife that maybe it was time to "manage expectations," not caring that Randall in the backseat could hear him. His father suggested  in-patient care. Randall's mother refused to consider it. _This_ psychiatrist would be the one who would help Randall and if he wasn't the one, they would keep looking. She would never give up on her son, her only child, never. Randall wished she would give up on him. Her "love" came with too many strings. If he loved her back, he would try harder.

 "That's all I ask," she said, turning around in the seat to look at Randall. "You don't have to be perfect, but just _try_ to get better."

Randall shrank in on himself. He never knew how to start out with a new therapist. They never seemed to understand. They told him his actions were “socially inappropriate" when Randall knew it was just that he was in the wrong society. It was always his job to change, but he couldn’t, any more than he could change the color of his eyes.

The man who greeted them in the waiting room was younger than they were expecting, taller. Randall's father mistook him for the secretary. "Randall Tier. We are here to see Dr. Lecter."

He laid a hand on his chest. "I am he."

Randall saw his father look at his mother. Mr Tier had expected someone stooped, gray-haired, and bespectacled. Someone with experience. Someone who had seen everything and would be shocked by nothing. Not an effete socialite who specialized in giving prescriptions to overwrought bankers and listening to their wives cry when those same bankers ran off with a blonde half their age.

Dr. Lecter gave no sign of having seen the skeptical look from Randall’s dad. He was smiling at them all, but his eyes were on Randall.

“Randall,” he said, holding out his hand. His smile widened and Randall could see a flash of his teeth.

They were the most perfect teeth he had ever seen in a human mouth. Pointed and feral, contrasting with the professional demeanor and the sonorous voice. Randall stared openly until Dr. Lecter’s lip dropped back down enough to cover his incisors.

“Welcome,” he said, opening the door wide. Once Randall was in the office, Dr. Lecter stepped in his parents' way and cut them off from entering by putting one hand on the door frame. Randall could feel his father's dislike for the doctor coming off of him in waves he could almost smell, sharp and hot. The bitter tang of feeling superior and inferior at the same time. Randall hid his smile by ducking his head into his shoulder.

“When Randall’s session is complete he will leave through the patients’ exit,” he said to the Tiers. “ I have separate entrances and exits for the privacy of my patients. I’m sure you understand. If you go back along that passage and turn right, you’ll find the appropriate waiting room.” And then he shut the door.

"I appreciate your parents' concern," he said, "but good fences make good neighbors."

The office was huge. Most of the therapists’ offices Randall had seen were shabby, with stained carpets and scratched office furniture. This office was nicer than Randall's house. He wasn’t usually impressed with décor of indoor spaces, but he liked all the dark wood and red walls.  There was a balcony that ran around almost the entire room. Randall thought how nice it would be to go up there and make a nest, to be able to watch whatever went on down below without being seen.

Dr. Lecter followed his gaze. “It looks safe up there, does it not?”

“I guess,” Randall said.

“You can go up there later, if our session goes well.”

“No, its okay.” It was a lie. He wanted to curl up on the balcony floor and watch what went on below from this perch.

Randall sat in one of two low chairs and grabbed the edge of the chair with both hands. Real leather. He could feel the grain as he ran his thumb over in. He didn’t want to make eye contact, but he knew therapists liked it. It was socially appropriate, but he could never shed the feeling that it was a challenge to meet someone’s eyes.

Dr. Lecter settled into the chair opposite Randall. He looked through a manila folder and then tossed it dismissively on the table next to him.

"Tell me why you are here today,” Dr. Lecter said finally.

Where to begin? Tell him about the fights, his compulsion to sleep in the woods? Or go deeper than that and talk about how wrong he felt, all the time, in his own skin?

"You know why. You've talked to my parents. You've seen my file."

“I’ve looked at the file Dr. Bailey sent over. I don't agree with his findings,” he said, nudging the so it sat squarely in the middle of the table. "I will certainly reach my own conclusions in time, but I am interested in your thoughts on the matter."

"If I knew what was going on I wouldn't need help."

"That isn't strictly true. A man might know he's having a heart attack and still die of it," Dr. Lecter said. "You have seen several different therapists throughout your life, but none of them have grasped the totality of your conflict. Dr. Bailey, for example, seems to think you are disturbed beyond any help he can offer you. In your opinion, are you disturbed beyond help, Randall?”

“No,” he said.  "Maybe. I don't know what that means. Maybe I am disturbed."

"You show a preference for biting that isn't in line with other aspects of your personality, or you alleged personality as reflected in your files." Dr. Lecter said. "The counselor at your school has called you quiet but aggressive."

"If they leave me alone, I leave them alone," Randall said. "I don't start these fights."

"You just know how to end them. With a savagery that trumps whatever your aggressor led with. That is the actions of a thinking animal."

The way he said that, Randall knew it was not an insult, but he wasn't sure what that meant.

"It is obvious that the people around you are concerned about you, and that you are unhappy." Dr. Lecter looked off into the middle distance above Randall's left shoulder. "What I am trying to determine is the _causality_ of those two things. Are you a disturbed, maladjusted individual and knowing that is making the people who love you unhappy; or are you unhappy and acting in what appears to be a disturbed manner because the people around you persist in their attempts to convince you that you have a problem where in fact none exists?"

Randall struggled to unravel that idea. He had never had it put to him like that. He had never questioned that he was the source of all the conflict. He was the odd one out, the troublemaker.

 "You will always be ruled by your fascination with teeth,” Dr. Lecter said. “This will never change for you.”

Randall looked up, finally making eye contact with Dr. Lecter accidentally and dropping it quickly.

"So they were right. I _am_ the problem," Randall said.

"Not at all," Dr. Lecter said. "It is either madness, ignorance or hubris to attempt to change the unchangeable, which is what your parents and psychiatrists have been attempting.  This culture plays great lip-service in praise of creativity, but creativity only within certain parameters. Trespass that boundary and eccentricity becomes insanity. This shows a limited understanding of the world. I, personally find beauty in the diversity of the human psyche. Where some seek to suppress individuality, I seek to nurture it."

“You don’t want to change me?” Randall asked.

"I wouldn't. Even it were possible. To try to change you would be perverse—and fruitless," he said. "I don't want to buck against your natural talents and strengths. What I will do is to give you the tools you need to have a successful life, to moderate these feelings you have until such time as you have mastered them. You will not be mastered by your impulses, but you will see them for the inspirations they are. You will learn the language of your instincts, Randall, and I will help you.”

“How?” Randall said desperately, then he sat back. It was too much to hope. “You don’t understand or you wouldn’t say that. I’m broken in a way that can't be fixed. I wish people would just leave me alone.”

“You aren’t  disturbed or broken,” Dr. Lecter said. “These were labels put on you by people who did not understand you. The truth was buried here…” he tapped the file “if they had eyes to see it. They worried that you liked to fight, but it wasn’t that you want to fight, but you wanted to use your teeth on flesh. It wasn’t personal. They think you are antisocial because you want to be alone, but you want companionship as much as anyone. It is simply that there is no one for you. You have no pack. I do hope you find a pack, but you may have to prepare yourself to be the lone wolf.”

Randall couldn’t speak. _He had no pack._ This was the exact name for the emptiness he felt.

“I don’t have any littermates,” he said. He blushed. He hadn't meant to speak the thought out loud.

“You are an only child.”

Randall nodded.

“Highly unusual for a pack animal. Even if there is a single birth, there are always others whelping around the same time, plenty of other pups to interact with, everyone at the same stage of development and needing the same interaction. But even if your parents had other children they might not have been your packmates, any more than your parents are now. You might have hurt your sibling, out of pure playfulness as a puppy might, and then your fate would have been far worse than what it is now. Society tends to look down on the sort of play that would hurt others, even if both parties learn valuable lessons from the injury.”

Dr. Lecter looked as though he were about to speak again but checked himself. “I won't overwhelm you with a lot of talk this first session. Words are sometimes difficult for you. You need time to digest what we have discussed in a quiet place. I venture to guess your parents' car or home will not give you that quiet, which is why you shelter in the woods. We have…,” he checked his wristwatch, “thirty minutes left, but we have done enough work for today.  Go up on my balcony and settle yourself. It is important to take a moment to gather your thoughts before you interact with others. You need to practice this until it is second nature."

Randall hesitated, but Dr. Lecter sat back behind his desk, opened a large ledger and started writing in it.

“Take the blanket from the settee up with you. You’ll find the floor is very comfortable.”

For the next half hour, Randall lay balled up on the floor, his fist to his mouth, watching from above as Dr. Lecter made notes and then took out a book and start reading. The psychiatrist had to know he was being closely watched, but was as unselfconscious as if he were alone.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

From then on, the sessions went much like the first one did. For the first half they talked about Randall’s life and for the second half he hid up on the balcony. It was a safe place to transition from being honest about what was inside of him to covering it up again. Randall stopped going into the woods, because he knew at least once a week he could make a nest in Dr. Lecter's office. It was a safe place, physically and emotionally. No matter what he said about the dark thoughts he had, Dr. Lecter was never shocked. He only ever nodded and sometimes smiled faintly, as if he already knew what Randall was going to say.

Dr. Lecter prescribed an anti-depressant in a low enough dose that it took the darkest edge off Randall's moods. Dr. Lecter wasn’t trying to change him, just help him blend in, hide in plain sight. His parents thought Dr. Lecter was a miracle worker. Randall did too.

His grades went up, but it wasn't all progress. Someone at school on the fringes of the popular clique took Randall's new socially appropriate behavior as a sign of weakness and decided to boost his own standing by taking him on.  He was ready for Randall to bite, but Randall kept his mouth closed and focused on getting his attackers feet out from under him and raining blows down on his head. Other students were yelling at him and yelling for help, but Randall barely registered them. Noise was muffled. He was focused on the body below his trying to buck him off and the feeling of his knuckles against flesh-covered bone.

 Randall broke his attacker's nose, and the nose of the kid who tried to pull him away. In the end it took two teachers to haul him off the other boy, but once they did, Randall was as calm and reasonable as someone spattered with blood could be. He could feel the pounding of his own heartbeat in the throbbing of his hands, but he didn't regret it. It was good to show them that he was still capable of cold, impersonal violence.

The principal and teachers dithered about whether they should call the police, deciding they didn't have to because the other boy had clearly started it and Randall was "just defending himself." Instead they called his parents.

His parents called his psychiatrist.

 

Dr. Lecter brought him in for an emergency session

"I am very disappointed in you, Randall. I thought we were past this," he said.

Nothing about this incident had bothered Randall this far, not the blood or his mother crying, but the disapproval in Dr. Lecter's voice chilled him.

"You told me to listen to my instincts," Randall said.

"Your actions today were purely reactionary," he said. "You were provoked and, giving no thought to the outcome, you reacted. That is not the actions of a thinking animal. They are the actions of an unthinking brute."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Are you? Do you realize you have jeopardized our work together? My reputation as well as your own is at stake. If your parents think I am failing you they will take you to someone else."

"They can't! You have been the best thing for me, Dr. Lecter."

"Inside this office, we know the truth." Dr. Lecter took a breath and sat down at his desk and when he spoke, it was in the calm level tone Randall was used to. "You can tell me, for example, how good it felt to beat that boy to the edge of unconsciousness."

"Yes," Randall breathed.

"I can understand, but to your parents and teachers it appears to be the same uncontrolled aggression," Dr. Lecter said. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then as if he had decided something for himself. "I have a gift for you. "

"A gift?"  Randall was not usually very excited about gifts. The gifts he received from his parents were mostly aspirational on their parts. He could see what they wanted him to be in all the sports equipment and clothing store gift cards they gave him. He was interested to see what Dr. Lecter would offer him.

 “More accurately, a therapeutic tool,” Dr. Lecter said.

He reached into a desk drawer and brought out something out and came over to where Randall sat. When he held it out to him, Randall could see what it was: a black leather dog collar. Dr. Lecter handed it to Randall, who took it, speechless. It was thick and sturdy, designed for a large breed.

" Put it on.”

Randall looked at it in his hands and thought about his parents waiting on the other side of the door. “Now?”

"Yes. Whenever you can, I want you to wear this. Not when anyone can see, but when you are alone. When you go to your den. This is a symbol of restraint. Someday you will not need it, but you need to learn discipline.”

The collar felt strangely good on his neck. It was grounding and comfortable. He could smell the leather. He ran his fingertips over it and listened to the doctor’s smooth voice.

“I am not trying to demean you or domesticate you, Randall, but you are young and impetuous. You will remain wild, but you will have to learn to be your own master. I can only take you so far, then I will hand the leash over to you. Does that sound like an acceptable course of treatment?”

“Yes,” he said, eagerly.

Randall fingered the metal loop on the collar. “Can I go upstairs now?”

 

The night after this session, the first time he slept with the collar on, Randall had a dream. He was back in Dr. Lecter’s office, wearing the collar and nothing else. He was sitting at Dr. Lecter’s feet in front of the fireplace. There was a leash attached to Randall’s collar and Dr. Lecter had the other end draped over his knees. He was looking into the fire, not at Randall so he didn’t feel uncomfortable being naked. Randall leaned his head against the doctor's knee. The fire felt good on his skin and the rug was soft.

They didn’t speak, but Randall was aware of the doctor’s fingers in his hair, nails scratching at his scalp. It was pure physical pleasure. Randall didn’t usually like being touched. He was so uncomfortable in his body that taking any pleasure in physical ways that were not aggressive were difficult for him.  But this he liked.

In his dream he had the ability to purr and he did, a deep body vibration that traveled through his bones, up through his skull into the bones of the doctor’s fingers.

“Good,” the doctor said.

Randall thought he would melt.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Dr. Lecter convinced the Tiers that Randall had too much baggage at the school and had to transfer.  The old school was eager to get rid of him and afraid the new school wouldn't take him, so some of his records were mysteriously lost. The history of aggression disappeared.  Randall was the new kid at school, a quiet studious loner, but not at all dangerous.

“Scholastic achievement is a means to an end,” Dr. Lecter told him. Through their conversations, he helped Randall discover how much he liked science and biology. Randall enjoyed studying the mechanics of bone and muscle, and then, surprisingly, machines. He took an engineering class and loved it, but his first love was still bones: animal bones, skulls and teeth. He had a previously untapped artistic talent that he tested by drawing detailed skulls from memory.  His new guidance counselor was so encouraged by Randall’s academic zeal that he helped him get an internship at the museum.

The day he found out he got the internship he almost floated into Dr. Lecter’s office, burbling about how happy he was at the museum. He could just look at those assembled skeletons and picture how they had moved when the animal was alive. His mind filled in the musculature. It was art and science.

Dr. Lecter listened to him, but there was something in his posture that Randall didn’t like. He was sitting on the edge of his desk, hands clasped between his thighs and his shoulders were just slightly rounded forward. Randall snatched a look at his face and the feeling was confirmed. He stopped mid-sentence.

“Is there something wrong?” Randall asked.

“Randall, you have made such tremendous progress…”

“No!” he said, gripping the armrests of the chair. He knew what was coming. The psychiatrists always said he made progress before dumping him, even if he hadn’t.

“You can’t keep seeing me forever. You will be applying to colleges soon.”

“I won’t be going away for another year, at least. Maybe I’ll stay near home.”

" You need to be weaned, Randall. You are going to do great things, but you need to do them alone,” he said. "If I influence you, they become my work. "

He felt like he couldn’t breathe. He was up on his feet and Dr. Lecter was, unbelievably, herding him toward the door.

“What if I need to talk to you? What if I can’t hold my own leash?”

"You can. You have been. You just need to have faith in your own abilities. I have walked you as far as I can. You need to travel the rest of the way alone. You will know where to find me, but I urge you not to call on me again. Our doctor-patient relationship has come to its inevitable end."

"What about a personal relationship? Can't we be friends?"

Randall grabbed at Dr. Lecter's sleeve and was surprised by the flicker of emotion over the man's face. It was only there for a moment, but Randall could have sworn it was a look of revulsion. It was gone as quickly as it came.

"I cannot be your friend. It would not be seemly if I had personal relationships with my patients.”

“I’m not your patient anymore.”

“You came to me when you were a teenager, still a child in many ways. Others may wonder what my influence is over you and when it began. It would not do my reputation any good.”

“You are worried about your reputation?”

"My reputation is important to me," he said. "A good reputation gives one a certain leeway in society. You know this. I have taught you this. You are asking me to endanger my career. My chosen career is very important to me. It is something I both excel at and enjoy. "

"I would give up everything to find a place I belong. I would drop everything—school, family-- in an instant for true companionship.”

“As would I,” Dr. Lecter said.

He favored Randall with one of his toothy smiles before shutting the door on him.

                                                                                                                                                 

Randall was bereft. He mourned the loss of Dr. Lecter like a death.  He shut the lights off in his room and refused to come out, rolled in the fetal position and keening. His parents pounded on the door but he refused to let them in. He could hear his parents arguing and then making phone calls. He could guess who they were talking to.

“He isn’t _fine_ …” his father said. “He won’t come out of his room. I don’t call this _progress_ …no…no, you need to fix this.”

Randall heard the gentle tapping of his mother’s fingernails on the door.

“Randall, honey, please come out. Your father wants to call the police,” she said, anxiety straining her voice.

Randall sat up straight and wiped both eyes with the back of his hand. His parents still saw him as a problem that needed fixing. A defective machine that needed to be sent back to the shop to be adjusted until it worked. 

He didn’t want the police to come and haul him off to a mental hospital “for his own safety ." His life would be different. It would be harder to convince people he wasn’t broken if they imagined him straightjacketed and foaming at the mouth, teeth snapping for purchase.

He took off his collar, hefted its weight in his hands, then he put it back in his desk and went out to face his parents. He had to show them that he wasn’t broken. He needed to pull himself together. He calmly dressed. Dr. Lecter was right. He didn’t need anyone else. 

 

 

There were some bad times, but for the most part he held his own leash.

Randall still wore the collar when he felt he needed to, but instead of feeling insecure when he took it off, he felt confident. He could handle it. The times he wore it highlighted all the other times he didn’t need to wear it. Through college, he wore the collar less and less and by the time he got a full-time job at the museum, he left it in the desk at home and rarely wore it at all. Just knowing it was there was all the boost he needed.

Randall was never without a therapist, but they served a different purpose to him now. They were his yardstick. If he could fool his therapists, he could fool anyone. He learned a lot about what “normal” problems looked like, then mirrored them right back to the therapist. They asked if he had friends or a girlfriend.  No, but he so was lonely, he told them, letting misplaced tears come to his eyes.  

But he wasn’t really, not in the way they understood it. He still didn’t have a pack, but it didn’t bother him as much as it had. He had survived being cut off from his mentor and was making his own way in the world.  

And yet, if he ever needed to call up convincing tears, he  had one memory he went back to time and time again: an office door closing on him, memory of teeth in a cruel smile.

It was a small circle he kept. Just his job at the museum, some classes and back to his small basement apartment. When there was an opening for an apartment on the second floor of his building, the landlord gave him first crack at it, but Randall turned it down. He liked his apartment for the reasons other people didn’t. It was small, dark and subterranean.

At his job he had a small work area in back where he spent most of him time, only venturing out on the museum floor after hours to work on displays. Sometimes before his afternoon shift started, he would come in early and wander around, trying to see the exhibits from the point of view of the visitor and enjoying his own handiwork.

More often than not, Randall was left alone. People sensed something about him that made them wary. It was nothing they could have put a finger on, but it gave Randall a pleasing buffer around himself. Occasionally there was the odd person who either didn’t have that inner warning or chose to ignore it and tried to strike up a conversation with him.

There was one such stranger on this day, an older—but not old—man, slight and dark haired, hands shoved down in the stretched-out pockets of a caramel-colored cardigan. Sitting next to him, Randall found that he smelled not unpleasantly of the barnyard: top note of clean hay, middle note of wool and bottom note of ruminant manure.

“It’s my day off,” he said to Randall, without preamble. “On my days off, after I feed the animals I like to take a trip to somewhere where I can learn something, like here or the library or the art museum. I go every week.”

“Getting the most out of your annual pass, huh?”

The man looked confused. “I don’t know what that is.”

Randall had just been making small talk, but he needed to set this visitor straight. “The pass gives you unlimited entrance to the zoo, museum, and the botanical gardens. Some other places too. If you don’t have the pass, but you come here or the zoo every week you are just wasting money. It will pay for itself in a few visits.”

He stood up "Come on, I'll take you up front and get you sorted out."

"Thanks, Mr…."

"Randall," he said. "Randall Tier."

"I'm Peter Bernadone."

"Nice to meet you," he said with a polite customer-service smile

In the end, Randall got him a refund for the day’s admission, and when it turned out Peter didn’t have $75 to pay up front for the pass, Randall paid for it himself.

“You come here all the time, you can just pay me back,” he said. Randall wasn’t being kind. This transaction was taking longer than he expected.  It was worth $75 to get himself out of the situation with this stranger.

Peter looked, a little lost, at the $9 refunded admission in his hand and said, “At least let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

Randall looked at his watch (which he chose specifically for its black leather band and the opportunity it gave him to make that suave time-checking gesture). Life events are sometimes determined by things as simple as this: having an extra 20 minutes before work starts to sit down and talk to a stranger.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

Later, Peter would tell Randall that he never initiated conversations with strangers.

“What made you want to talk to me?” Randall asked.

“I don’t know,” Peter said. “but my instinct was right about you.”

Peter Bernadone was older than Randall, but in some ways Randall was the more mature one. Peter had an honest, naïve openness.  He lived and worked on a horse farm and was more comfortable around the animals he worked with than other people.

There was something about the way Peter spoke that interested Randall. His head ducking and eye avoidance did not read to Randall as unfriendly as it might to others, but as nonconfrontational and therefore friendly and non-aggressive.

Without much talking it over, they had standing plans to meet almost every week.  They planned their get-togethers around an activity so they wouldn’t have to talk if they didn’t want to. The silence around them became comfortable and familiar. They went to the art museum (which Randall didn’t care for) and the zoo (which they both enjoyed).  Randall even snuck Peter in the back and showed him his work area where he assembled the models.  He was fascinated when Randall explained the similarities in dinosaur and modern bird skeletons.

On Halloween, Peter came to Randall’s basement apartment to give out candy to trick-or-treaters. Kids didn’t come all the way out to the horse farm Peter lived on, but he had always wanted to give out candy for the holiday. Randall had always shut his lights off on Halloween and didn’t answer the door, but Randall could tell Peter was excited so he agreed. Randall watched from inside as child after child held out their bags for the candy. He found himself moved by the few kids who wore homemade costumes and had their faces painted inexpertly.

“Did you trick or treat when you were a kid?” Randall asked Peter.

“Sure I did,” he said. “It was one of the best days of the year. We didn’t have a lot of money, so free candy meant a lot to us."

“Us? Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Sisters,” Peter said. “I was the baby of the family, the only boy after four sisters.  I always tagged along with them. I was their responsibility.”

“Must have been nice to have a big family,” Randall said.

“Sometimes,” Peter said. “When I was trying to hide my candy from my sisters it wasn’t so great.”

“I’m an only child,” Randall said. Peter didn't look at him, but was wary, trying not to spook Randall. It was so rare for Randall to offer personal information.

“Sounds lonely,” Peter said after a moment.

"It was."

Randall had not gone trick or treating. His parents already thought he had a problem distinguishing reality from fantasy. They weren’t about to let him prowl the neighborhood in a tiger costume.

Peter gave out the last piece of candy at a little past 9 pm and they shut off the lights to discourage anyone else. Randall offered to let him stay on his couch that night but Peter had early chores in the morning, so Randall drove him home.

It was late, but it was the first time Randall had come out to the farm, and Peter wanted him to see his barn, which was filled with every kind of animal in cages. Many of them were birds. Randall had never felt any kinship with birds. He had always felt so plodding and earth-bound, with the heavy bones of a predatory mammal.

 “Isn’t it cruel to keep these birds caged up?” Randall asked, “when all they want to do is fly?”

“Most of my birds are pets that people gave up. Moms will get tired of cleaning the cages, so the kids bring them to me. It would be cruel to set them free when they don’t even know what a predator is. This one here…” he rested a hand on one cage, “she was hurt. Kids will also bring me hurt animals they find sometimes. Once her leg is healed, I’ll let her go.” He took his hand off the cage. “I try not to get too near to her. I don’t want her to get used to humans. That would be cruel too.”

“Humans can’t be trusted,” Randall said.

“Humans are the only animal that will kill just to kill,” Peter said, shaking his head. “Doesn’t that just say something about our species?”

Randall didn’t think he was right. A well-fed dog will shake a bird to death just to play. Maybe that wasn’t the same thing, though. A dog was just following its instincts. An animal can’t premeditate murder. A dog doesn't know it's being cruel.

Randall looked at the rows of animals Peter had in cages. He wanted to tell Peter he felt like he was on the wrong side of the bars. Peter knew who he was and didn’t doubt his own humanity, but he loved and understood animals.

“We’re all just animals,” Randall blurted.

“Don’t say that,” Peter said. “That isn’t fair to animals or to humans. When we start thinking we’re animals it is usually a way to excuse the worst kind of cruelty that not even animals can imagine.”

 _Exactly_ , thought Randall.

 

It was the end of the season, the last weekend the zoo would be open until spring. It was also the day before thanksgiving. The weekend would be busy for the zoo, but for now the kids were still in school and the zoo was deserted.

Peter wanted to go to the bird house and say goodbye. While he went into the climate controlled building, Randall sat on a bench outside, enjoying the bracing cold. It had been a rough week for him. He could feel the tension in his jaw. The museum had a new director who wasn’t happy that Randall was doing such high level work without a PhD. It didn’t matter that Randall did such good work, the director said, but the position called for a PhD and Randall still a few credits shy of his masters. He was looking at losing his job.

The holidays were difficult for Randall even without the added work stress. Every holiday that came around he had to tell his parents all over again that no, he wasn’t going to be there for cutting the turkey or opening the presents or looking for easter eggs. No, he didn’t want them to throw him a birthday party. No, he wasn’t going to his cousin’s wedding. This time Randall’s father had cleared his throat and with a wavery voice said that if the trouble was that he didn’t want to bring a boyfriend home, that he shouldn’t let that stop him.

“If you love him that will be good enough for us,” he said.

Randall didn’t know what to say, so he just hung up the phone.

As he sat on the bench at the zoo, he thought of all the things he could have said to his father, but nothing he said would have helped. The truth was too painful: _I stay away because we would only end up hurting each other_. He was so sunk in his imaginary arguments that he didn’t hear Peter until he was right next to him.

“Randall, are you alright?”

Randall shook his head. Peter sat down next to him on the bench.

“I know you don’t like to talk a lot about yourself,”  Peter said, “So I never asked you about your problems. I thought when we became good enough friends and you were comfortable with me, you would just tell me. But I think I made the wrong choice. Because something is bothering you and I don’t have any idea what it could be. I think of you as my best friend, Randall, and I hope you think that I am your best friend.”

“I’m doing my best, but I don’t think I’m capable of that kind of friendship.”

“Of course you are,” Peter said. “You have been a great friend to me, just quiet. You don't trust people easily, but I thought you would talk to me someday if you knew I was here to listen. I never told you, in words, that I am here for you. So, I'll say it now. I'm here for you, but there is no way for me to help you unless you tell me.”

Sitting on that bench, Randall began to cry; something he hadn’t done in years, not since the day Dr. Lecter stopped his therapy. He couldn’t hold back the tears and he cried, bent forward, with his head down in his crossed arms. Peter rubbed his back briskly, like he was trying to revive him rather than soothe him.

When, after long moments, Randall could talk, he picked up his head.

“I feel like an animal,” he said. “I feel like there is a beast inside of me, trying to get out. I don’t expect you to understand or even to want to be around me now that you know. I'm _sick.”_

“Sometimes I feel like there is a bird in here,” Peter said. “Fluttering around in my chest. But I don’t think that’s what you mean, because it always makes me happy to think about it.”

 “Do you think you _are_ that bird?” Randall asked. “Do you feel like the bird is the real you and it's just waiting to claw its way out of you? That it can’t wait to be free of your chest so it can peck out people's eyes?” Randall almost enjoyed the mingled look of surprise and fear in Peter’s eyes “Because that is how I feel. The beast is the real me. The Randall you see is just a cage for it. That is why I can’t be a real friend to you. I’m not even human. The thing inside me…it wants to hurt people.”

“You wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Peter said.  “Not the Randall I know. I don’t know why you would say this. What brought this on?”

Randall just shook his head.

Peter stood up, a determined look on his face. “I have an idea. Come with me to the farm.”

Peter drove Randall’s car to the farm. The ride was silent except for Peter humming to himself as he drove. Randall wished for his collar and kept his hand on his throat to remind himself to be controlled. Still, silent tears slipped down his cheeks and he kept his head turned away from Peter to hide them.

Instead of heading to the barn, Peter led them to the main paddock where the horses were. The animals heard the two of them coming and picked up their ears.

“Stay right here,” Peter said and when he came back he had a few carrots to feed to the horses. Peter called to them, but they were already on their way over, the bolder ones sticking their heads over the fence. They nudged Randall’s arm and nuzzled his palm with their velvet noses.

“Look how big and strong these horses are,” Peter said, patting the neck of the closest horse “but they don’t hurt anyone. They aren’t humans and they don’t think they are humans, but they don’t want to hurt humans.”

He looked at Randall. “Can’t the thing inside you be like that?”

The horses were undeniably animal, powerful and yet gentle. He admired their dark flanks and the way their hooves churned up the dirt.  Poetry never meant much to Randall but he remembered the line “hope is a thing with feathers.”  He felt that fluttering hope and understood what Peter had meant about the bird in his chest.

 Peter didn't understand, but he was trying. Because what did understanding benefit him if it wasn't mixed with affection? Peter had no agenda, he just wanted Randall to be happy. He offered what comfort he could, with the purest motives.

Randall had hope because these horses were animals who could be around humans, work with humans, be gentle with humans and yet lose none of their animal heart.  It wasn't really about the horses. It was about the man who offered them to Randall.

He leaned his head on the rough fence railing.

Peter put his hand on Randall's shoulder

"Why don't you stay here tonight?"

 Peter had a small but cozy living area in the back of the barn, walled off and set up like a studio apartment.

“I think I have a cot somewhere…” Peter said.

“I can sleep on the floor,” Randall said.

“Let me at least get you a sleeping bag,” Peter said.

When Peter went off to look for it in another building, Randall went back to the main section of the barn where he had seen something he needed more than a sleeping bag. Sitting on top of one of the cages was a large dog collar, made of faded woven green nylon. Randall hid it in the waistband of his pants. He could feel it chafing against the skin of his lower back while Peter fussed over him, getting him set up for bed. Once the lights were off, Randall waited for Peter’s breathing to deepen and slow before he got comfortable. He put on the scratchy collar and slept as he liked to, naked on his side with his knees pulled up and almost touching his nose. He didn’t care about being caught. Let Peter know what he was dealing with, and with the full knowledge of the beast, decide whether to accept or reject him.


	5. Chapter 5

At dawn Randall woke and quietly dressed. He was thinking more clearly, and he changed his mind. It had been stress about his job and family that caused him to crack. He was in danger of losing everything if he acted this erratically. Sleeping naked on a barn floor! It was one step up from a nest of leaves. Dr. Lecter would be so disappointed if Randall just threw away everything they had been working towards.

He looked at the bundle of blankets on the bed and decided to slip out before Peter awoke. He was embarrassed about his need, his tears, the way he let this gentle man take care of him and put him to bed like a baby. The memory of listening to Peter’s breathing  which had been so comforting in the dark felt shameful to him in the light of day.

Randall moved on all fours to the door and pushed it open slowly, sighing with relief when he entered the main kennel area.

Peter was there, sitting on a stool next to a stack of cages, drinking coffee. Of course Peter was an early riser. Randall had forgotten Peter was essentially a farm boy with a load of morning chores to do.

“Randall,” he said with a smile, but then in confusion he said, “Why are you crawling on the floor. And you wearing…is that a collar?”

He had wanted to keep it, as a momento, since he was planning on cutting off all contact with Peter.

Randall released the plastic latch and drew the collar off his neck with as much dignity as he could.

“I was only borrowing it,” he said. Then, realizing that explained nothing he continued. “It’s a trick my therapist taught me. It symbolizes control, when I’m feeling out of control. A leash for the beast within.” He put it down on the small beat-up table and backed away from it.

“That doesn’t sound right,” Peter said. “Why would your therapist remind you that you are human by making you wear a dog collar?”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” Randall said. “This is why I don’t talk to people about it.”

“I want to understand,” Peter said, slipping off the stool to approach Randall. “If your therapist told you to do this, you should do it.” He walked over to the table and touched the collar. “I guess you are right. I just don’t understand, but I’m trying to.”

“Just forget it!” Randall said, countering Peter’s gentle tone with his harsh one. “This was a bad idea. I told you I’m not capable of friendship!”

“I just need time to figure out how I can help you.”

Randall grabbed Peter’s upper arms and shook him.

“You can’t help me! I’m not a wounded sparrow!”

He shoved Peter away and knew his grip had been so tight it would leave bruises. Tears stood out in Peter’s eyes, but he blinked them back. He picked up the collar and held it out to Randall.

“Take it, if it helps you,” he said.

Randall knocked the collar out of Peter’s hand and shoved him hard enough to send him sprawling into a pile of empty cages and knocking them over. The animals were agitated, squawking and hissing in their cages. Randall reigned himself in. _The leash_ , he thought.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll never be a good friend to you. This is what I am. This is the real me. I am a beast.”

“No…Randall…” he heard Peter say, but he was already leaving.

***

Over the next few days Peter called Randall, but Randall didn’t answer any of the calls. What more was there to say? After the calls stopped, Randall received a card from Peter. The picture on the front had a fuzzy-focused photograph of a horse. On the inside, Peter had written:

_Randall,_

_Without you around I can’t feel the bird in my heart. She doesn’t fly around any more. You are still my one best friend and it hurts me to see you hurting so bad. I don’t know how to help you feel better, but I still want to be by your side while we both figure this out together.  Please let me. I know you were just scared and embarrassed, but I forgive you._

_Your friend always,_

_Peter_

Randall went to work with the card in his pocket. His resolve to stay away from Peter was weakening. He had shown Peter a very ugly side of himself and Peter, not even understanding fully, still wanted to be his friend. Randall felt a small flutter of doubt about Dr. Lecter. Maybe he was wrong. He said he doubted Randall would ever find a packmate. He told Randall to be prepared to be alone. But he didn't say it was impossible. He had told Randall he had to find his own way. Maybe he had succeeded in a way not even Dr. Lecter could have predicted. He was seen for who he was, the ugly snarling thing he was inside, but was still loved.

Randall was still trying to decide what to do when he got the phone call from the hospital.

 

 

Sometime during their short friendship, Peter had entered Randall’s number as the emergency contact in his phone, so when Peter was found unconscious and bloody in a stall at the farm, the hospital called Randall. They wouldn’t tell him anything over the phone other than Peter had been at work and had been hurt. The nurse on the phone stressed Randall should come right away.

Peter was unconscious, his head wrapped in gauze, his face swollen and bruised. The police were investigating it as a possible assault. Randall wasn’t family, so they wouldn't give him a lot of information. One cop had pity on him and told him Peter had been found with his head nearly caved in, lying on the stable floor.

“He’s lucky to be alive,” the cop said. “If they found him five minutes later he might be dead.”

Randall felt his chest tighten at the thought that Peter could have died with this unfinished business between them.

“He ain’t out of the woods yet,” the cop added.

“Who would do this to him?” Randall asked him. “Peter Bernadone wouldn’t hurt a fly. Why would anyone hurt him?” _Besides me_ , he thought _. I hurt him because his kindness scared me_. Randall had the wild, frightening thought _Did I do this without knowing it?_

“We’re still investigating,” said the cop. “But we don’t think anyone did this to him. No one human, at least. Most likely thing is one of the horses there spooked and kicked him in the head.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “The doctor said she could see the shape of the horseshoe stamped right on his skull.”

One of Peter’s beloved horses had done this to him.

Randall vowed he would never again to set foot on the horse farm. He couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t cut the throat of every horse there, starting with the one who had crushed Peter’s skull. He wouldn't ask which one had done it. He didn’t want to have that knowledge. It would be dangerous.

Randall called in sick to his job three days running and stayed at Peter’s bedside. He was the only one there.  Randall wondered what happened to all the family Peter had talked about. He cursed himself for not listening when Peter talked about his family. For whatever reason Peter was as alone as he was. Randall thought he had been respectful for not asking a lot of questions about Peter's past, but now he realized Peter would have wanted to tell him, if only Randall had asked.

The doctor in charge of his case gently told him Peter might be in a coma for weeks. Randall should go back to work. “We will call you,” she said. “If there are any changes, either way.”


	6. Chapter 6

When the hospital called a few days later, Randall it was sure it was to tell him that Peter had died. Instead the news was better than he could have hoped. Peter was alive and awake.

 “Don’t expect much,” the doctor told him.  Randall could see Peter's  face wasn’t as swollen and the two black eyes were just beginning to fade into greens and yellows, making his face look mottled.

“I know you,” Peter said. “Don’t I?”

“Its me, Randall.” He hoped Peter's eyesight hadn't been permanently damaged. He sat at Peter’s bedside and took his hand. It was limp in his. “I’m so sorry, Peter.”

“You look f-f-f-familiar to me.”

“Its Randall,” he said again, but there was no real reaction.

“Randall?”

Peter’s speech was slower, impeded by a slur or a lisp. Peter had never been much of a talker, but this was different. It was the drugs they were giving him, Randall thought.

 “How are you feeling?” Randall asked.

“Not good, my friend, not good.” He said, leaning back on the pillow and closing his eyes. Then he sat up. “How are my animals?”

"They are being taken care of. Don't worry about that."

A few of the girls who worked at the stables were taking turns watching over his menagerie.

"Do me a favor, Ray," Peter said in his new, almost childlike lisp. "Don't let them put down the horse. The one who kicked me. She didn't mean it. She was just scared. Tell them not to hurt her.”

 

Through the next few visits the truth was made plainer and plainer. Randall had to introduce himself every time he went back in. Peter called him “Ray” and asked constantly about his animals. Randall stopped correcting him when he saw how useless it was.

Peter had little memory of Randall and their friendship. Great pieces of the last few months were gone forever or hopelessly mishmashed in Peter’s mind. Peter had one partial memory of a conversation he and Randall had on the farm and was convinced they worked there together. He didn’t remember the meeting at the museum, or that first time having coffee together.  He didn’t remember going to the zoo together or telling Randall about cruelty and birds. He didn’t remember the incident with the collar, either. Randall felt ashamed that he had gotten off so easily for his bad behavior. Peter no longer remembered Randall shoving him and how they parted on bad terms. He simply didn’t remember Randall much at all.

The Peter he had known was gone. In his place was this man who looked like Peter, but had taken on the unmistakable scent of prey. Stammering, unsure of his words and his own memory, Peter was the one left behind by the herd. No one but Randall came to see him. No friends or family. Randall was conflicted about his visits, but couldn't stop. Peter had no one else in the world. But as Peter changed, so did Randall. Instead of being ashamed of his violence against Peter, he started to think of how he had gotten away with it. Peter was even more helpless now, having no one to check on Randall's care of him once he left the hospital.  He imagined lifting Peter up out of bed—he would be so light—to change the sheets, and then gently laying him back in bed and tucking him in.

He also had darker thoughts, of lifting Peter up and carrying him away into the woods. It was the way of the world for people to kill and eat animals and for animals to rise up and kill their captors. Here Randall was, caught in the middle of the conflict, not wholly on one side or the other. Taking care of Peter would be a grand test. But inside, Randall knew how it would end. Eventually.

 

The next time he showed up, the nurse had him wait until the doctor could talk to him.

“Mr. Bernadone doesn’t remember you,” she said. “And because he has no memory of you, he finds your visits upsetting. He will probably be able to regain some of these memories in time, but for now it might be best for Mr. Bernadone if you don’t visit for a while.” She saw the stricken expression on his face and said. “I’m so sorry, but it is for the patient’s good. I’m sure you understand.”

Although he was angry at being turned away, Randall had to admit it was a good thing he was barred from seeing Peter. He couldn’t make himself stay away from Peter, even as he realized the other man’s vulnerability made him too tempting for Randall to resist. He felt a small relief. The decision was taken out of his hands.

The relief was temporary. Peter's absence left a void in his life he couldn't deny. For the first time in over a year, Randall wore the collar Dr. Lecter gave him. He was afraid the magic wouldn’t work, but feeling the leather around his neck and the metal fastenings in the hollow of his throat calmed him. Alone in his apartment he shed his clothes and wore the collar alone. He worked his fingers into the metal loops and tugged back and forth as he paced. The slight pressure was grounding. He concentrated on feeling, not seeing. He didn't want to see how he looked, pacing around: his pink vulnerable skin, the scant hair that covered his body only in patches, his small square teeth.

He couldn’t settle down enough to even thing about sleep that night. Relief at having Peter safe from him was giving way to anger at them keeping Peter away from him. He imagined breaking into the hospital and killing Peter, dying with him. He wanted to use his teeth on his flesh, to hear the crack of cartilage as he bit down on his throat, the scream of the machines that were helpless to save Peter in the face of Randall's power and rage.

In his more lucid moments, he doubted it was physically possible for him to kill someone with his teeth alone. His jaw wasn’t big enough or powerful enough, but he wanted it all the same. He wavered between trying to banish these thoughts and embracing them. He paced like he was caged, bumping into things and shoving them out of the way heedless of the pain until his hips, shoulders and shins were sprinkled with flowering bruises and jagged red scrapes.

Peter was out of his reach, but there was one person who he might be able to contact who could help him sort out his thoughts.  Randall dressed and drove to Dr. Lecter’s office. 


	7. Chapter 7

It had been years, but Dr. Lecter acted as though Randall was there for a weekly appointment. His eyes flicked to the black edge of the collar that peeked out of Randall's shirt, but it was only the briefest glance.

“Come in,” he said.

He was just as Randall remembered him. He felt the old familiar calm sinking into him.

Dr. Lecter settled into the chair opposite Randall and crossed his legs elegantly. _How do you do that?_ Randall wanted to ask. Dr. Lecter moved with an animal’s grace, smooth as silk, but confidently inhabiting the body he had, the clothes he wore, the office around him. The layers like shells one after the other protecting…what?

Randall told him the whole story. He described his blossoming friendship with Peter, his kindness, his love of animals. And then he told Dr. Lecter about the time in the barn when he pushed Peter, how he was sorry for that but not sorry enough. Sorry, in a way, that he hadn’t gone further.

Dr. Lecter listened politely until Randall finished.

“Randall. You handed this friend your leash, but he was not worthy of that trust. He didn’t understand the core you. You put faith in him and your friendship. That has left you scared and confused. You cannot rely on that from anyone else. I tried to prepare you to be a lone wolf. It would appear that I failed.”

“I thought I found someone--”

The reproachful look on Dr. Lecter's face stopped Randall mid-sentence.

"This news is distressing to me, Randall. I had higher hopes for you."

"You said I needed a pack," he said.

"I also said you needed to prepare yourself to be a lone wolf. I thought you may have learned that lesson when I refused to see you anymore. Did you not grieve my loss? If the one person who understood you could not be your pack, it would be logical to conclude no pack exists," he said.  "I was leading you toward that truth and trusted you to take the last few steps on your own. Instead, you found a gentle man to dominate you and then became angry at him when he couldn't. You put your trust and, yes, your love, in someone who was unworthy of it."

"Peter was not unworthy of me. " Randall though of how he had hurt Peter and how he was planning to hurt him in the future. "I was unworthy of him."

"If you think so, there's nothing more I can do for you.  You may go, Randall, and please do not visit me again." He stood and walked over to his desk as if the conversation no longer interested him.

 

 “What about you, Dr. Lecter? You understand me. You’re the only one. Before you I was lost. Without you I was lost.”

Dr. Lecter looked amused at the thought. “What are you proposing? I was your psychiatrist. I am not even that to you anymore." He turned, looking directly into Randall's eyes.  “What would be my benefit in befriending you? You focused on what I could offer you, but what is it would you offer me?”

“Devotion. Loyalty.” Randall shivered, knowing that if Dr. Lecter insisted  he would be his pet. He would put the collar back on and lay by the fire. For a time Randall would be happy, to not have to think and direct his own life. But how long would that last? How long before he would turn on his master, bite the hand that fed him?

“Can you aspire to know me as well as you claim I know you?” Dr. Lecter asked.

“I would. In time, if you would show me…”

“In my life I have encountered a few people—not many— who could, if I held them by the hand, manage to stumble along behind me. I would have to slow my gait and wait for them. I require more than that in a companion. I need someone who is capable of getting there on their own. I need to look behind me and be surprised to find that he isn't there. He is waiting in front of me. This is why I left you on your own, to see what you could do when left to your own devices. I wanted to see what you were capable of alone.”

The rejection churned in Randall's stomach. Dr. Lecter was testing him to see what he could accomplish alone. Instead of reaching his full potential, he pursued a doomed friendship. He had failed the test.

"Some lessons, I'm afraid, have to be learned the hard way," Dr. Lecter said. "This relationship was detrimental to your progress. You have everything you need to be as self-sufficient as the wild animals are but you keep turning back and seeking domesticity. First with Peter and now again with me."  Dr. Lecter started to pace slowly in front of his desk. He spoke again from behind Randal's chair.

"Do you know what a lioness does when a cub is too old to suckle and attempts to anyway? She bares her teeth and growls. She cuffs him with sheathed claws. But if he persists, she bites him."

Randall had been sitting in his seat, trying to work through what was being said, when he felt a sharp point against his neck. Something was pressing against his throat in the pale unguarded flesh above his collar.

"I sent you off the first time with play bites," Dr. Lecter said. "But you have made me doubt my judgement. I thought you were capable of greatness. Now I have so little faith in your skill as a hunter. You wanted to kill Peter, yes? Your best friend?"

"Yes."

"This crime would be crude. Beneath what you are capable of."

"But I _could_ do it," Randall said, feeling the sharp point on his neck and trying not to move as he spoke. He couldn't see, but he was sure that any more pressure on the blade would send it right into his artery. "Isn't that something? I am accepting who I am. I would betray my best friend. I would open up his throat and let him bleed. Doesn't that prove to you I'm the animal I was meant  to be?"

"So you do this. What happens then? How long before they find you? They will catch you, and fairly quickly at that. Then the police will come, asking me questions." His mouth came closer to Randall's ear, his voice a growl. Randall's hands were trembling.  "Imagine when they catch you. You will be denied your freedom for the rest of your life, only left with the indignity of a small cell, rarely seeing the sunlight. The eternal indoors, until the day you die. A caged beast.”

“I don’t want that,” Randall said.

"I do not want it for myself, either. We are all three of us connected. Questions about Peter lead to you and questions about you lead to me. You are a thinking animal, Randall,” he said. "It is time to think. Close your eyes and think about what you want. The real you. The beast within."

He flicked his eyelids down but before he closed them  he saw Dr. Lecter's hand move in front of his neck, the scalpel he held ready to slice his throat. Without thinking, Randall snapped and caught the side of Dr. Lecter's hand between his teeth.

He could feel the shape of the bones in his mouth and knew he had the swell of his first knuckle trapped in his jaws. Dr. Lecter's fingers splayed and the scalpel dropped into Randall's lap, hitting his leg with the flat edge and then flipping to the floor. He shifted his bite so his teeth were notched in the valley between the knuckles and bore down, twisting his jaw just a little so the teeth moved against the skin. He felt the skin just begin to split with the pressure. With his free hand, Dr. Lecter punched him in the side of his head; once, twice, unhesitatingly and with surprising force. Randall concentrated on transferring the force through his skull and into his teeth, an old trick he had to make his opponent's strength work against him.

 Dr. Lecter jerked his trapped hand up and Randall's jaw followed. He used his free arm to go around the younger man's neck and squeeze. Within moments, Randall's world went dark.

 

When he woke, Randall was on the rug in front of the fireplace, a blanket tucked around him. Dr. Lecter sat in an armchair nearby. When he brought his glass of wine to his lips, Randall saw the gauze wrapped around his knuckles.

"You are awake. How do you feel?"

"You tried to kill me," Randall croaked. "Why?"

"I was curious to see what you would do," he said. "How domesticated you had become." He took a sip of wine to allow for a dramatic pause. "I was pleasantly surprised. You are a rare animal."

"What if I had failed your test?"

"You would be dead," he said. "Tell me, what have you learned?"

He put a hand to his throat. It was bare except for a small square of gauze taped where the point of the scalpel had nicked his skin. His collar was gone. "I've learned not to hunt where I sleep," he said. "I have learned that I am a lone wolf, even though other wolves exist. "

The silence between them was almost companionable. Something had been worked out between them. An understanding had been reached

"You have used your teeth against me, and you know your limits," Dr. Lecter said. "You do not need a chain to hold you back any longer.” He set down his glass. "Come. Do you think you can stand?" Dr. Lecter helped him up, one hand around his waist and the other under his elbow. He had been touched more by him tonight than in the whole time they had known each other.

Dr. Lecter walked him to the door. Randall stopped on his way out and turned. "Something else I've learned: there is only so much my teeth alone can do. Next time I'll use a knife."

"A knife is a crude weapon, a poor substitute for a mouth of razor-sharp teeth."

Randall was quiet. The phrase _a mouth of razor-sharp teeth_ was echoing in his ears. He still felt a little light-headed.

"You will always be fascinated by teeth. It is central to your identity," Dr. Lecter said.

"But what does that mean? What do I _do_ with that?"

"I can't tell you that. You need to come up with it on your own. You will do what you need to do to be at peace and you will do it with deliberation and tenacity." He touched  both of Randall's arms, but did not grasp them. He looked, finally, proud.  "You are capable of great things and I look forward to seeing the fruits of your animal labor and your human creativity. Unfortunately, I will have to see these events from afar and after the fact. To observe is it to affect, and I would not for all the world want to affect what you will accomplish. Your accomplishments will be wholly yours and, I am convinced, wholly individual.”

Dr. Lecter released stepped back, still proud, but like a parent sending a child off to college. The cage door swung open and Randall would fly or crawl or slither out into the world.

They needed to keep different territories. Dr. Lecter was just as much a predator as he was. It was a different animal that lived inside him, but it was there. Randall had seen it when the blackness rushed in on him, felt it in the cold metal against his neck, heard it and smelled it and tasted it in his own saliva mixed with Dr. Lecter's blood in his mouth.

“I think we understand each other,” Dr. Lecter said. “I wish you the best of luck.”

“You too,” Randall said. “Happy hunting.”

 

Outside Dr. Lecter's office, Randall shivered in the cold air. He had no idea what time it was, how long he had lain unconscious in front of the fire.  He felt invigorated, shot through with a wild energy that was there to be tapped, there when he needed it, yet his face remained placid except for a smile. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Was it just his imagination that he tasted threads of copper? He thought he could taste the last remaining traces of blood between his teeth, lingering like a heady aftertaste. Dr. Lecter hadn't offered him any wine or even water. He let Randall keep that savage flavor in his mouth as he walked out into the world.

Although he had taken his car and the night was cold, Randall set out on foot. He didn't know where he was going. He walked until he came to a park, and he sat on a park bench. No one disturbed him and he sat for hours, thinking, rolling the memory of salt and metal around in his mouth. He had the smallest seed of an idea, something that would fuse together bone and steel, teeth and gears, ancient and new. He pictured his own form turned inside out so the strong animal part of him would show on the outside and the human part would be protected on the inside. He knew it would be days and nights of work, all his free time taken up with his project. It might well take him years.

 He had work in a few hours. He was dirty, in pain, and cold down to the bone, but for the first time he could remember, he felt hopeful and he felt free.


End file.
